Page 56 of 59 Minutes

FRANKIE

‘Please, my boyfriend, he’s—’

A woman of seventy or so peers out with quick darting eyes.

Then she yanks open the door and pulls Frankie inside the homely kitchen.

Bolts slide, a key turns. Before saying anything else, the woman pulls Frankie into a hug.

It’s so disarming that for a moment, Frankie closes her eyes and says nothing.

The gun hangs limply in her left hand. If the woman has seen it, she’s not letting on.

This woman is five foot nothing. Short grey hair that’s fuzzy like a peach. She wears jogging bottoms and thick knitwear. She’s slightly stooped but looks exceptionally capable. ‘Did I hear that right, you’re pregnant?’

‘Yes, but that’s not …’

The woman cocks her head, like she’s hard of hearing so Frankie raises her voice. ‘It’s my boyfriend, Otis, he’s … I need your car. But I can go alone if you can’t—’

‘We’re not going anywhere, love. Not together or alone. Whoever is still out there … there’s nothing we can do for them.’

‘No,’ Frankie says, and she lifts the gun in a way that feels pantomime, ‘you’re not listening to me, you have to—’

‘If you’re going to shoot me you should get on with it,’ the little woman says, walking into the belly of the kitchen. ‘There’s only five minutes left either way. I’m Janet, by the way, Janet Spencer. And you are?’

‘Frankie,’ she manages to say as Janet pulls a huge green first aid kit from a stuffed cupboard. ‘I would like to look at that head wound before you pull the trigger though.’

‘What?’ The gun trembles in Frankie’s left hand, she secures it with the right but it feels ludicrous now, silly.

‘That’s a lot of blood. What happened?’

‘Car crash,’ Frankie says, feeling the pinch of tacky blood in her hairline now, the sting of it in her eyes. ‘And my boyfriend was injured too. He’s alive but he’s unconscious and we’re running out of time.’

‘Let’s get this stitched up quickly in the good light and then we can settle ourselves in downstairs.’ Janet gestures for Frankie to sit at the table, pulling out cotton wool, a little bottle of TCP and some plasters.

Frankie grips the gun to her body. ‘But my boyfriend is still out there,’ she says, even as she follows her to the table, her filthy feet leaving a trail of mud across the tiles.

‘We all have people out there,’ Janet says, quietly.

Frankie has a sudden need to not be standing or moving.

Has she ever felt so tired, in so much pain?

The gun still trembles in her hand and she hugs it to her like a baby as she sits heavily on the kitchen chair.

It’s so warm after the outside that she feels a sudden sweat coating her.

Janet dabs TCP onto a cloud of cotton wool. ‘This’ll sting a bit, Frankie.’

It stings like hell but Frankie stays silent. She grits her teeth as a large plaster is applied to her throbbing forehead and an even larger gauze somewhere near her crown, wrapped loosely in place with a long strip of bandage, flattening her hair.

The small hand of the kitchen clock moves audibly. ‘Oh god,’ Frankie says. She places the gun on the table and moves her hands from it. What good is it now? There are four minutes left, not enough time to drive back to Otis, drag him into a vehicle and get back. He’s gone.

‘He has,’ Janet says, softly. Frankie must have said it out loud. The two women clasp hands and Frankie gasps as she’s pulled gently to a stand and led into the hallway, stopping in front of an open cellar door. ‘But we haven’t, and I think we’ll be best off down here.’

Frankie has to duck, her head throbbing harder as she lowers it.

The dusty stone stairs are lit by a bare bulb, but more light glows below and as she reaches the bottom step, she can see that the cellar is probably as big as the footprint of the house, a shadow version of life on top.

Drums of water, tins of food, jars of god-knows-what line up like infantry troops along the wall.

It seems designed for this very occasion.

Janet passes her a bundled pair of thick socks from a shelf of clothes. She takes them gratefully.

And that’s it. That’s all it took for her to leave Otis out there, in the mist and the rain, the fire and the incoming fallout. Three minutes since Janet opened the door. That’s all it took. How will she ever forget that?